Fife farmer finds sweet success

By Stuart Eskenazi
Seattle Times staff reporter

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES George Richter, who owns a farm in Fife, is one of the only remaining berry farmers in the Puyallup Valley.

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There is no time to savor good publicity. It's the peak of raspberry harvest, and Richter is swamped. Hundreds of flats, each containing a dozen half-pint containers of the supposedly sublime specimens, await air shipment to the Midwest and East Coast.

"It's not about me," Richter says of the recent accolades. "I just happen to be in the right place. The Puyallup Valley is one of the best places in the world to grow raspberries. It has the right climate and the right soil."

True, but Richter also has the right touch — a real red thumb.

California surpassed Washington last year as the leading producer of fresh raspberries in the United States, buoyed by a climate that allows for growing year-round. But in the newspaper story, California's leading raspberry grower respectfully directed the writer to visit Richter's farm up north if he wanted to sample the sweetest ones around.

Growing raspberries A tip from the expert George Richter's top tip for growing great raspberries in your home garden? Plant the canes in well-drained soil. "People plant raspberries in wet soil and the plants develop root rot, destroying the means by which they bring up moisture. The leaves then turn brown and people think that's because the plant is dry. So they water some more. But it's too much water that was killing them in the first place."

Richter, 75, is one of the last berry farmers in the Puyallup Valley, where much of that right soil now lies beneath development.

"The Puyallup Valley used to be the center of the berry industry," says Richter, a third-generation Pierce County farmer whose family has been living off the land there for more than a century.

Richter bought 12 acres on the banks of the Puyallup River in 1963 and planted his first raspberries in the well-drained dirt the next year. He leases adjacent properties for a total of more than 50 acres of berry wonderland he is farming this summer.

In addition to raspberries (red and gold), Richter grows several varieties of blackberries, nectarberries (a boysenberry that is Richter's personal favorite), tayberries (a raspberry-blackberry cross), gooseberries, currants (red, black and white) and, in the winter, hothouse rhubarb.

Red raspberries account for about 60 percent of Richter's sales volume.

"His berries are always drop-dead perfect," says Mark Adams, owner of Northwest Specialty Produce, which supplies Richter's berries to a fashionable few food markets around Puget Sound.

Rave reviews are nothing new to Richter. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once had a flat of Richter's raspberries accompany her home after eating them during an international summit in Houston.

A true raspberry flavor

	GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Berry farmer George Richter inspects some freshly-picked berries stored in a giant walk-in cooler on his farm in Fife. The berries are headed to the East Coast. His raspberries are rated as some of the best in the U.S. and are sold to a selective group of stores and buyers.

If Richter's raspberries are highly decorated, the same cannot be said about the wood-paneled walls of his office — a converted back room of the modest farm house where he and his wife live. Three different freebie calendars share wall space with a world map and a framed aerial photograph of his 12-acre farm.

Outside his office, Richter is hard to catch, walking fast with long strides. His brown work boots, which rise past his ankles, kick up the sandy, slightly acidic soil Richter contends is the real star here. In comparison, California's alkaline soils have to be treated to produce pH levels ideal for raspberries.

"They can't get a flavor like this in California," Richter says from beneath a frayed straw hat as he picks and eats one of his berries. "Up here, you get a true raspberry flavor and no bitter aftertaste."

Richter is one of few remaining raspberry farmers in the state who grows his fruit to be sold fresh. Henry Bierlink, executive director of the Washington Red Raspberry Commission, said about 98 percent of the 60 million to 70 million tons of raspberries sold each year in Washington is for processing, used in jams, juices, ice cream and the like.

"Unlike California, which can produce a year-round supply, we have a six-week window," Bierlink says. "If all you do is sell fresh berries, it's very difficult."

Richter can make a living selling fresh berries because the quality of what he grows attracts loyal clients. Richter grows mostly the Tulameen raspberry, which is considered the leading variety for fresh eating.

"Once we saw what the fruit was like and tasted the flavor, I stopped growing most all of the other varieties," says Richter, who also farms a small crop of the late-producing Caroline variety to extend his selling season.

Tulameens, bred in British Columbia in the 1980s, are so venerated in England they are sold under that name instead of as raspberries. In the Pacific Northwest, Tulameens mostly are grown in the Puyallup and Skagit valleys in Washington, Willamette Valley in Oregon and Fraser Valley in British Columbia. They also are grown in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

"They have a classic sweet taste, a lovely color, are large, easy to harvest, very productive and have a good shelf life," said Hugh Daubeny, who bred the raspberry while working for the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Daubeny, now retired, named the berry he created after an Indian word, which means red ochre. Tulameen also is the name of a tiny settlement in the Fraser Valley.

Selective selling

Richter sells most of his fresh berries to wholesalers who supply fruit to groceries, restaurants and country clubs. He also sells directly to a few grocery chains and specialty markets in the Midwest as well as a St. Louis candymaker who sells the Tulameens dipped in chocolate.

Berries sold under the Richters label tend to land in high-end markets. Locally, they are sold at Metropolitan Market, Larry's Markets and Whole Foods. Richter does not sell his berries to the general public at his farm.

The hub of the state's raspberry farming is not in the Puyallup Valley, but rather in Lynden, north of Bellingham. There, Whatcom County farmers harvest with machines since the berries are sold for processing and therefore do not need to be perfect. In the Puyallup Valley, though, farms are too small to justify investing in harvesting machines.

During peak harvest, Richter employs as many as 70 pickers and a crew of packers, several of whom have worked for him a long time. He does much of the other farm labor himself.

The hand-picking and hand-selecting of Richter's berries gives them a consistent quality customers have come to expect. Brian Wells, produce manager for Metropolitan Market in Tacoma, says his store carries pretty much everything Richter grows, including the more exotic berries.

"Until a few weeks ago, we were getting calls from customers saying, 'Hey, have you got Richter's berries in yet?' " Wells says. "We had a list of customers to call back when they finally came in."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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